Simon Bolivar

Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military leader who liberated much of South America from Spanish colonial rule in the early nineteenth century.

He led independence movements across what are now Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia—the last named in his honor.

Called El Libertador, Bolívar envisioned a unified South American federation, though this ambition went unrealized.

His name invokes revolutionary idealism and Latin American identity: Chávez styled himself as a modern Bolívar.